


beautiful scars, critical veins

by HazedHaze



Category: Magisterium Series - Holly Black & Cassandra Clare
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, aaron worries a lot, call being unconscious (what a surprise), tamara being the best friend ever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-24
Updated: 2016-04-24
Packaged: 2018-06-04 07:05:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6647083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HazedHaze/pseuds/HazedHaze
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>//Aaron hadn’t meant to hurt him. It was accident and he hadn’t meant to do it.</p>
<p>But it had been done. And as Aaron sat motionless, by his bed, wanting desperately to clutch his hand, to feel life pulsing through his veins, he didn’t dare touch him. In case he damaged Call further.//</p>
<p>*<br/>Aaron injures Call, worry and comfort and mind-explosions happen -- jump in and read.</p>
            </blockquote>





	beautiful scars, critical veins

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Erika/counterweighting-death](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Erika%2Fcounterweighting-death).



> (Save my soul)
> 
> i wrote this like months ago (before new years) but decided that since im going to be caught up in my new au for ages, i might as well publish it here. i havent proof-read it but c'mon - it can't be that bad

Aaron hadn’t meant to hurt him. It was accident and he hadn’t meant to do it.

But it had been done. And as Aaron sat motionless, by his bed, wanting desperately to clutch his hand, to feel life pulsing through his veins, he didn’t dare touch him. In case he damaged Call further.

The room he was sitting in was large, had a high-ceiling and was, as far as he could see, free of any stalagmites, stalactites or wall-decorations. There were many beds, layered in thin white sheets, in orderly lines but there was only one person in any of the beds: Callum Hunt.

The woman in charge of the Infirmary, who was tall and red-haired, had left and Aaron was quite thankful, if he was being honest. The snake around her shoulders unnerved him whenever it changed the pattern of its scales but her watchful gaze was more unnerving. He couldn’t bear her looking at him like that. Like it wasn’t his fault. (It was his fault.) He appreciated that she was helping Call but he didn’t like her hovering near him all the same.

“I’m so-sorry,” Aaron chocked out the words and screwed his eyes shut, “I’m so sorry. I’m…sorry. Sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.”

He carried on the apologies until they had descended into whispers. His chest hurt and his hands felt uncomfortable by his side so he clutched them tightly in his lap. His feet crossed, uncrossed, spread out, crossed again, came together, and uncrossed them once more. His hands were red and clammy but not as sore as his heart. His eyes throbbed and redness decorated his face like a mourning veil. He couldn’t see it, as there were no mirrors in the room, but he was certain that teardrops were falling down his cheeks like glitter cascading.

He felt a slight tap on his shoulder that seemed both hesitant and persistent – he could already guess who it was but didn’t want to think about it the last possible second – and it took a second or so for the fact to settle in that someone wanted his attention. He cleared up his tears, wiped his eyes until his sight became sharp and focused, and gave his raw face a few rubs to displace the unnatural colouring of his cheeks so it didn’t look like he had been sobbing. He glanced up to his right and spotted, between the strands of blonde hair that fell into his vision, Tamara looking down at him.

Her braids looked newly made, any rough or messy bits tucked away into the endless wave that was Tamara’s hairstyle; any stragglers were kept away from any judgement or prying eyes, just the way Tamara wanted it. He’d been around her enough to know a few things about her and she always re-tied and brushed her hair when she felt nervous or upset. Considering that she was often nervous about school, and whether they were going to be put in mortal peril that year or not and whatnot, she re-tied her hair almost every day except for holidays and weekends. He supposed that this time, she had done her hair because she was upset and nervous.

“How are you doing?” She asked with a level of softness that Aaron had never thought that he would associate with his friend. She was almost always dictated by orders and logic and spared little to no time for getting needlessly emotional. He mentally cursed himself for basically calling Tamara an emotionless robot and looked deeper into her expression.

He noticed the creases between her eyebrows and the slight lines underneath his eyes that looked like she had hastily covered them up with something – makeup?

“You shouldn’t be asking me that question, he’s the one you wanna ask,” Aaron replied, dissonant and disconnected, trying to show how he felt. He was trying to control his voice so it didn’t dip into a murmur that he would be forced to repeat. The conversation’s atmosphere was awkward enough.

“Well, he’s never been the one for answering my questions anyway – injured or not!” Tamara proclaimed, more quietly than Aaron had believed it was possible to proclaim. He supposed that he should be nicer and more involved in the conversation, Tamara was clearly upset as well but she didn’t let that stop her from comforting others, but he’d had enough of being nice and being involved and serving others’ needs. He just wanted—

He realised with a small start that he had no idea what he really wanted.

Well beyond the obvious want of Call getting better, and the second less-obvious and shameful desire: Call finding it somewhere in him to forgive him.

Call was made up of sharp edges of wit, honesty and, even though Aaron doubted that Call recognized this trait in himself, pride. Aaron had seen his lashes at Jasper, who always managed to find a way to annoy Call and pick at his touchy spots, and how unforgiving he could be. Though Aaron was Call’s friend and he certainly used to pride himself in the fact that such a wicked-tongued boy chose to expose his silver heart to Aaron. Now, slouched in a plastic chair in a hospital wing next to Call’s slowly-breathing body that Aaron had put there, Aaron feared that Call’s pride would not forgive Aaron and that he’d lose his best friend.

“Hey, I think your eyes are going a thousand miles an hour,” Tamara, probably unnerved by the lack of Aaron’s reply, had tried to carry on whatever shamble of a conversation they had started, “and maybe in the wrong direction. We can talk, you know. Anything you want to discuss?” Aaron still didn’t reply so she settled herself gracefully down on the end of Call’s bed – he was too small in that bed, Aaron thought grimly to himself, it looks as though he’s being smothered by white blankets – because that’s how the whole Rajavi family did tasks. Efficiently and gracefully.

“I- I- I just want to, well, want to know something.” Aaron squeezed out in a voice so small that he half-hoped Tamara wouldn’t hear and half-wished that Tamara would hear. At the sign of a small nod by Tamara’s head, he carried on with a lot more worry inside than he had before (This is why you shouldn’t start conversations, Aaron, he scolded himself), “Do you think that-that Call will forgive me?”

The words were harder to splutter out than he had imagined.

“What?” Tamara’s face was a little puzzled as though she had trouble hearing the question, like someone might try to translate a different language that they have very limited knowledge of, “Oh, Aaron. You know that what happened wasn’t your fault, right?”

Those words set Aaron’s alight but in a surprising way - like he’d been slowly stacking up a bonfire of words and thoughts and memories unknowingly and Tamara’s words were the flaming torches thrown straight into the middle of the pile. He didn’t look forward to the oncoming flames that would surely flare up in the torches’ wake.

“But Tamara,” the only calm part of him left, the wood at the bottom of the pile that was lucky enough to have not been consumed by the dangerous fire yet, tried to control his tone and body language; he didn’t like anger and tried to avoid it any way he could, whether it be his own or someone else’s, “Didn’t you see what I did? It was-“

“An accident,” Tamara interrupted; eyes glaring with their molten gold stares that she knew could paralyze anyone – anyone who wasn’t quickly being swallowed up by a furious flare inside, “I know that, Master Rufus knows that, all the doctors and nurses in here know that. Trust them, they wouldn’t have let you in here unattended with Call if they didn’t trust you, would they?”

Tamara’s words were laced with truth and logic, Aaron knew that but he also knew that as important as their opinions of Aaron were to him, they were ultimately overshadowed by Call and his opinion. It was a scary and foreboding thing that Aaron wanted to avoid getting on the bad side of but also a loving and warm thing that Aaron knew instinctively that he needed to appease.

“Tamara,” Aaron’s restraints were slowly slipping out of his grasp as the flame inside inched nearer to his wood, like a beast teasing its prey before the final pounce, the final explosion, “that’s great and all, but how will Call feel? He probably doesn’t kno-“

“Aaron, please don’t be absurd. I console myself everyday with the fact that Call is not that foolish and if it turned out that he was I really wouldn’t know what to do with myself.”

And with that, the bonfire inside of Aaron started to sizzle and fizz out as Tamara’s words acted like water and calmed the fire inside him. It was still there, lingering and menacing but Tamara’s humour had acted as both a comforting and protective force on his mind.

“Are you sure?” Aaron’s words were hollow and hoarse and his eyes were unconsciously pleading to Tamara for more reassurance.

“Yes, Aaron, I’m sure. Call is not as thick as we fear. Or as thick as his skull is. He should be able to recover. It may take a while, combined magic and head injuries can seem pretty damaging but the people here are here for a reason: they’re good at their jobs. I was talking to the head doctor, whilst you went with Call, and she said Call should be up in a while.” Tamara stood up and clamped a hand on Aaron’s shoulder, causing him to look directly into her face for the first time since she’d entered the room, “I am positive that he’ll still like you after he’s recovered.” She grinned at her own humour as best as she could, considering the circumstances.

Aaron felt like grinning at Tamara’s infectious smile and scowling at her for the jab at his and Call’s…

Friendship? Relationship? God, Aaron didn’t know but he knew one thing for certain: he was going to smile with Tamara but run his mind over Tamara’s words, throw the thought of whatever the hell he and Call were to one another into his Deal-With-Later Folder and stay by Call’s side for a little while longer.

**Author's Note:**

> dedicated to Erika who requested a fic from the prompt - 'Didn't you see what I did?' - pain's up to you.


End file.
